Call of Duty: Ghosts

Infinity Ward's New Mode Blitz Is A Blast

Call of Duty: Ghosts features a new mode called Blitz, and this fresh take on multiplayer makes clever use of portals.

At Gamescom, we got a chance to check out Call of Duty: Ghosts new
multiplayer mode, Blitz. In Blitz, players are divided into groups and
tasked to defend a portal stationed at their base. Each team’s goal is
to rush their opponent’s base and dive through that portal. Teams score
points for each player who walks, slides, or falls into the hoop, and
after touching the hoop, players are teleported back to their own base
where they can begin their journey again.

“The way we design is always iterative,” executive producer Mark
Rubin told us. “We come up with a new idea, ‘Okay let’s do a mode where
players have to run through a portal to score points,’ but then that
brought out a lot of questions about how that works, and you have to
explore the solutions. So Blitz started out as a kind of fast-paced,
maybe more accessible, version of capture the flag, and it turned into
something that requires its own unique strategy. It’s almost like
playing basketball where each team has its own ball at the same time.”

The mode is simple but fun, and is very fast paced. Similar to
capture the flag, teams will have to be good at both penetrating their
opponents base and defending their own, but unlike capture the flag, you
have less time to defend your base, because as soon as players touch
the portal they disappear. After a score, portals power down for a
number of seconds, so you’ll have to plan your strategy around that, but
it’s still a viable option to bum rush a portal and hope to overwhelm
your opponents in order to get at least one player through the gate.